Shopping carts are commonly provided at grocery stores and other shopping centers for convenience of the shoppers. The primary purpose of shopping carts is to provide a “basket” to hold items for purchase while the shopper is looking for other items or just browsing in the store. Although most shopping carts also include a seating area for small children (a “basket seat”), little if anything is offered for adults.
Large plastic seats have been attached to the back of some shopping carts for older children. An additional two wheels are typically required to support the additional weight of these large plastic seats, making the shopping cart bigger, bulkier, and more awkward to navigate through the store isles. In addition, these seats are not made to support adults.
While many shopping centers now recognize the need to accommodate handicapped shoppers, they do so by providing motorized “scooters” with a small basket that the shopper can use to hold mostly smaller items while they shop. These scooters are generally expensive and therefore, only a few are available at the shopping centers that do provide these for their shoppers. The scooters can also be cumbersome to navigate through the store isles. In addition, many adults who have difficulty standing or walking for long periods of time (or other minor handicaps) prefer not to use these scooters so that more severely handicapped shoppers can use the scooters. Accordingly, these shoppers with minor handicaps may not spend as much time in the shopping center as they otherwise might.